Amy Reinink

Now that the Philly Half is happily in my rear-view mirror, I’m turning my attention toward the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler on Dec. 8. I’m so excited about this race, guys! Not because of the actual running part, which I’m guessing will be fun, too, but because of all the other stuff that comes with a J&A Racing event (they’re the fantastic local race organizers who put on the Wicked 10K).

For this race, that means swag that includes a long-sleeve technical half-zip shirt; a cute, Santa-themed finisher’s medal that doubles as a beer-bottle opener; a re-usable goody bag (the one we got at Wicked was really cute!); a pint glass; and a finish-line party that includes live bands, free Sam Adams beer and chicken tortilla soup from Baker’s Crust, a local restaurant that provided amazing veggie chili in a bread bowl after the Wicked 10K. The party following the Wicked 10K was so much fun, I felt like it fulfilled all of my Halloween party needs—live music, dancing, good times with good friends, great people watching—you name it.

Participating in a J&A Racing event also means costumes, which leads me to the wordless part of this post, and the call for suggestions for what I should wear to the race. I’m thinking about just going with as much random red-and-green running stuff as I can find, plus a Santa hat, similar to some of the folks below (photo courtesy of the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler website):

But with inspiration like the runner below, both of whom I believe are past costume-contest winners, I wonder if I shouldn’t get more creative (photos courtesy of the Surf-n-Santa 10-Miler website):

Thoughts? Ideas? I’m looking for something cheap, fun and easy to run in.

Happy Thanksgiving, and good luck with your turkey trots, pie-eating contests and other forms of holiday fun!

I’m not going to sugar-coat it: This race was a rough one for me.

But first, I’m going to talk briefly about what I liked about the race, which is plenty (just because I had a rough day doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the fun stuff!). The course is absolutely wonderful, showcasing all sorts of cool neighborhoods in Philly without too many hills or weird detours aimed only at adding mileage. The race is extremely well-organized, from the well-timed starting corrals to the warm chicken broth handed out post-race (whoever thought of this as the perfect post-race fuel for cold runners after a November race should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize). The shirt is incredible—a long-sleeve tech tee that seemed to fit everyone in our group perfectly. The crowd support is terrific, from the 76ers doling out high-fives on the sidelines to the costumed spectators, including a particularly amazing group of people in “green man” body suits at mile 11.

Now: My own personal race experience on Sunday. From the start, I knew I wasn’t in this race to win it. My training for it was cut short, my pre-race plans including tailgating for a football game, I had a stone in my shoe, the sun in my eyes—you get the picture. But even though I wasn’t expecting a PR, I was sort of hoping for something more like the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon in 2010—and, more importantly, I wasn’t expecting it to hurt as much as it did.

I made a big mistake right off the bat by “running by feel.” This strategy works well when I’ve trained well for a distance race, or when the race is short enough that a late-race bonk isn’t a huge problem. But on Sunday, the fact that I got caught up in the crowd, running a happy, easy 8:30-minute-mile pace for the first two or three miles was probably not ideal.

But even if I had run a perfectly paced, slower race, it was what happened at mile 7 that made this race so incredibly difficult for me. On my playlist, I have a Ramones cover of “What a Wonderful World,” the song my dad and I danced to at my wedding. Usually, it gives me a boost of energy and motivation. When it came on my iPod on Sunday, at the bottom of one of the race’s two significant hills, it stopped me in my tracks, filling me with such a sense of grief and longing, I immediately burst into tears.

In front of me, I saw a girl wearing a purple shirt with angel wings on each shoulder blade, above the words “running for my angel, [name forgotten].” I looked at her, and looked at the hill I stood at the bottom of. My stomach clenched up, my face flushed with heat, and I wondered for the first time that day if I might as well just stop running.

Have you ever tried to run up a hill while bawling? It’s not easy. Also not easy: trying to regain your composure after such a breakdown to the point that you can run six more miles.

I would like to tell you that I cried it out, took a deep breath and finished the race in my dad’s spirit. Here’s what actually happened: I wheezed my way to the top of the next hill. Then, I started beating myself up. I had started to slow down a bit even before mile 7, and I spent the next couple miles thinking some version of the following: How funny that I was worried about how I’d get back into the hotel. Like I wasn’t going to get back there an hour after everyone else. Like I wasn’t the slowest person in the group. Stupid. Everyone’s already showered by now. I’m just out here on the course. Slow and stupid.

It continued as I ran up the other significant hill on the course, at mile 9. I glanced down at my Garmin, which I was only wearing to help keep my speed in check in the beginning (ha!), and noticed that I was running 11-minute miles up the hill. Slow and stupid. I even spent a little bit of time beating myself up for being so dramatic, and for having such little mental discipline. The mental game is the only part of racing that I’m really good at, and I’m even botching this!

Finally, after reaching the top of the mile-9 hill, and after deciding that I did, in fact, want to finish the race, I took a deep breath and focused on moving forward. I was shameless in my microgoals, promising myself I could lay down in the bushes and hide if I could only make it to the next water stop. (Though I definitely spent a long time walking through the water stops, I’m pleased to report that I did not actually lay down and hide anywhere). I also thought a lot about that awesome shirt. When Steve asked post-race why I kept running, even when I wasn’t  having fun by any definition, I answered honestly that at least 99 percent of my motivation came from the fact that I wanted to wear that shirt, dammit.

At mile 10, a killer migraine hit—a mid-race first. I also started feeling sand from some long-ago beach run surface in my shoes, despite my efforts to shake it all out pre-race. At mile 11, I decided to push myself to try to make it to the finish line in less than 2:10 (a completely arbitrary number based on the fact that my watch said 1:50 at the moment, and that 2:10 seemed reasonable). I shuffled over the line in 2:13:28, meaning my average pace was 10:10-minute miles—not bad for someone who took several minutes on the course to weep, wheeze and walk through water stops!

When I got done, I was smiling, but completely spent in every way possible: Physically, mentally, emotionally. My head was pounding. The ouchies (I think Kara Goucher calls them “niggles”) that occasionally bothered me during training were all shouting for attention—among other sore spots, I felt like someone had stabbed me in my left glute. And that sand in my shoes had caused an unbelievably gross blood blister on my right pinkie toe.

I hobbled back to the hotel, feeling like I’d run 26.2 miles rather than 13.1. I told all my friends what happened, and listened to their stories about their own races—some involved PRs, others disappointments. After a while, talk turned to where we’d get lunch, what we were up to for Thanksgiving, and other non-running-related stuff. You know—the important stuff.

I keep thinking about a shirt I saw near the end of the race, a guy whose back bore the words: “The struggles make you stronger and the changes make you wise.” I’m excited that I signed up for the Surf n Santa 10-miler not because I want to go fast, but because I want a chance to test my newfound strength—I must have built up some serious fortitude on Sunday, right?

I signed up for the half yesterday. Who’s with me?

Happy race week to anyone running the Philadelphia Marathon and its accompanying half-marathon this weekend!

I first signed up for this race in May, and was excited to start a training cycle that would get me back in the running saddle following an intense, skiing-focused winter that led to me completing my ski-patrol training. Between then and now, as Emerson would say, some absurdities have crept in. Thanks to a family emergency and other factors over the summer, I didn’t run the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon, which I’d hoped would be a warm-up for this one. Thanks to spending a whole month sick on the couch recently, I didn’t work my way up to 13.1 miles slowly so much as I squeezed in the necessary long runs just in the nick of time.

Still, I choose to view this training cycle as a success. Because guess what? The training cycle was totally imperfect, but I finished it, anyway, just like I’ll finish the race this weekend.

And it’s not like I’m untrained, exactly. I have several confidence-boosting runs in my training log, including a great 10-miler last weekend that included about four miles on a beach with word-problem wind (as in: Amy runs two miles at 8:30-minute-mile pace while heading east, with the wind at her back. Amy turns around and runs two miles at 11:30-minute-mile pace while heading west, into the wind. How many miles per hour is the wind blowing?).

I’ve asked lots of runner-friends in real life and on Twitter for advice about the course, and have heard from several runners that there are a couple of quad-eating hills at miles 7 and 9. I had noticed them on the elevation chart, but I’d been hoping they look worse than they feel, especially considering my pancake-flat training runs in Virginia Beach.

Otherwise, I just keep hearing that it’s everyone’s favorite race course, that they ran a PR despite the hills, that the finisher’s shirt (a long-sleeve technical T-shirt) is really cool. I’m looking at it as a catered training adventure, an opportunity to explore a cool city by foot and a chance to hang out with a bunch of my runner-friends. Really, it’s hard to see how things could go wrong!

Have you run the Philadelphia Half Marathon? If so, please share some advice or insight about the course by posting a comment below!

Dear Lynsey Dyer:

THANK YOU!

Love,

Chicks on sticks (and other female athletes) everywhere

I thought I was done with post-Sandy shout-outs to my home county, at least as far as this blog was concerned. But the more I thought about the images that summed up the past week for me, the more I realized I needed to post some photos showing you why I’m so deeply loyal to this place—not just photos of the destruction. I also realized that while I’d like to go back to posting about running, swimming, skiing and other outdoor adventures sometime soon, the images below illustrate the undeniable fact that growing up in Monmouth County has made me the runner, swimmer, skier and person I am today.

So, bear with me and my survivor’s guilt, and let me add a love-photo-album to my love letter to my home county.

I feel certain that spending long afternoons on the boat with my parents, navigating the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers or jetting across Sandy Hook Bay to New York City, helps explain why I’m as comfortable in the water as out of it. I also feel certain that my outfit in the first photo helps explain my current fashion sense, or lack thereof (do I need to remind you I grew up in the 1980s?):

Summer days meant waking up early to head to Chapel Beach Club for swim practice, then spending the day in my swim-team suit as I played endless games of underwater tag and sharks and minnows in the pool; body-surfed and boogie-boarded in the ocean; dug holes to China in the sand; and developed whole sand-castle cities, before eventually collapsing from exhaustion sometime after dark. An endurance athlete in the making, no? (Now that I think about it, digging a deep hole in the sand could totally be a CrossFit move.)

When I got older, I discovered that Sandy Hook, the long spit of beach across the river from Highlands, was perfect for long runs, bike rides with friends and rollerblading trips (do I need to remind you I was a teenager in the 1990s?):

Did you grow up in Monmouth County, or elsewhere on the Jersey Shore? If so, what’s your favorite childhood memory, and how did it contribute to who you are today?

Any other Monday, I’d be writing about my 10-miler last weekend ahead of the Philadelphia Half-Marathon Nov. 18. The 10-miler was great—my joints felt about as good as one would expect considering that this was my first run longer than 15K since 2010, and except for the last two miles, I had a hard time keeping my pace slower than 9:30-minute miles (I wanted to take it slow, to avoid an ego-bruising bonk).

But I have to tell you that my heart’s not in it, but is instead still in Highlands, my sweet, devastated hometown, which is prepping for another storm even as it tries to rebuild from the last one. Ever since Sandy hit, I’ve been glued to the constant stream of bad news from former classmates—kids I went to Girl Scouts with, and kids I ran cross-country with, who are now looking for warm beds for their own kids after finding their houses destroyed, their belongings lost. My heart is so heavy for all these old friends! Pile that devastation on top of the personal tragedies we’ve sustained over the past couple years, and this storm has made me feel like there’s too much tragedy in the universe for one person, one family, one town, one world, to bear.

I know the remedy, of course. It’s to look forward, and to find the bright spots after the storm. This sentiment is a cliche for a reason—it’s true. Even though my heart is heavy for all that’s been lost, it swells with pride for all the amazing work my friends who live in the area are doing to rebuild.

It’s in their spirit that I’m looking forward today. At the end of my 10-miler last weekend, I switched from my running mix (composed of equal parts gangster rap and 1990s jock jams) to Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising,” which I’d uploaded to my iPod earlier that day. I ran my final strides to “My City of Ruins,” and as I heard the chorus: “Rise up! C’mon,rise up!” I realized that if my friends and former classmates who lost so much can rise up, I can certainly do the same.

It’s also in their spirit that I look forward to the Long Branch Half Marathon on May 5, 2013, held the day after what would’ve been my dad’s 78th birthday in my home county. I haven’t registered yet, as I’m waiting for confirmation from race officials that the race will still go on. But it’s nice to think about that as one of many bright spots ahead.

“Do you ever have one of those days where everything you ever loved as a child was under water?”

That’s how Daily Show host and New Jersey native Jon Stewart led his first post-Sandy broadcast. And that’s the kind of day I and everyone I grew up with in Highlands, N.J., have been having all week. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to only be mourning memories, as many of my high-school classmates are mourning the loss of their homes and all their belongings. I want to dedicate this blog post to them and to the rest of Monmouth County, and to ask anyone who thinks they’re having a bad day today to look at some of the images below.

Downtown Sea Bright. Photo courtesy of Daniel Ekdahl at http://daninseabright.tumblr.com.

The pool at Chapel Beach Club, where I attended my first-ever swim practice. Photo courtesy of Daniel Ekdahl at http://daninseabright.tumblr.com.

What’s left of Donovan’s, the bar where I had my first legal drink. Photo courtesy of Daniel Ekdahl at http://daninseabright.tumblr.com.

A few words about where I grew up: You can joke all you want about the Jersey Shore (Snooki and her friends are from New York, people!), but I’m convinced I spent my childhood in one of the most beautiful places on earth. My memories are of bodysurfing in a wild, gray-blue ocean in the summer; running on a windswept, hard-pack-sand beach in the winter; hiking and running on steep, hilly trails in Hartshorne Woods; picking ruby-red strawberries at Sickles (Jersey produce really is the best on earth!); driving my first car, a hand-me-down 1992 Chrysler LeBaron convertible I paid for with lifeguarding money, down Ocean Avenue in Sea Bright with Bruce Springsteen blasting on the radio; taking the ferry to New York City to see a Broadway play; dipping the doughiest, crustiest bread you can imagine in the tangiest, creamiest vodka sauce you’ve ever tasted at La Pasteria; boat rides on the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers; and fireworks on the boat in Red Bank harbor, just to name a few. It’s a place where summers are dominated by long beach days and where Bruce Springsteen, who grew up there and still lives there, stops by local bars for impromptu shows. It’s a place that makes me wonder what all the New Jersey jokes are all about, because it’s as beautiful and authentic as anywhere else I’ve been.

I’ve been glued to Facebook and other social media since the storm hit as I watch for posts from friends and former classmates about the damage sustained, the belongings lost, houses underwater or simply washed out to sea. Imagine that—a whole house simply gone, as if a tornado hit rather than a hurricane. To get an idea of how bad the aftermath really is, check out this Tumblr page put together by a friend of a friend, and this video of damage in Sea Bright from the Star Ledger (sorry—I can’t seem to get it to embed).

I write all this for one reason: To implore anyone with the resources to do so to donate to the American Red Cross, and to keep those suffering from the storm’s aftermath in your thoughts.

I postponed my Monday-night run until Tuesday night, because I was out playing in this instead:

The good news: I’m still on pace to complete my last-minute, rejiggered half-marathon training schedule:

And finally, I’ve found an awesome-looking 10-miler directed by J&A Racing, who planned the fantastic Blue Moon Wicked 10K, to follow up the half, in case I feel the need to test my speed (given my amended training schedule for the half, I am definitely not planning on Philly being my speediest race):

On Friday, I wrote about how my main goal for the Blue Moon Wicked 10K in Virginia Beach was to have fun, and to reignite my training for the Philadelphia Half Marathon in November. I’m happy to report that at this awesome, light-hearted 10K, it’s almost physically impossible to not have fun.

We’ve all run races at which people wear costumes. But holy cannoli, I’ve never seen costumes like these before at a race!

We saw Teletubbies:

We saw a hamster with a wheel:

I ran half the race beside a guy wearing a Hooters uniform:

We also saw the entire cast of Spaceballs, a convincing rendition of the Mario Brothers, an all-male Wizard of Oz cast (have you ever seen Dorothy with five-o’clock shadow?) and Clark Kent turning into Superman, complete with a phone booth. We might have been the only people not costumed. Next year …

I succeeded in executing the relaxed training run I hoped for, sticking to an easy 10-minute mile pace for most of the race. I dropped down to a nine-minute mile pace for the last mile, and sprinted to the finish feeling strong. I chatted with runner-friends I saw on the race course. I high-fived a dude in a giant gorilla suit. I shouted out words of approval to runners whose costumes I particularly enjoyed. In short, I had an absolute blast.

And that was just the race itself—the post-race party was even more amazing! It was held in the Virginia Beach Convention Center thanks to Hurricane Sandy, whose whirling winds were the only downside to this incredible race. By the way, a word about the wind: This was the first time I ran in winds so strong, I spent entire miles kicking myself because the wind slapped one foot into the other leg. At one point, I tried to draft a dude wearing a giant cardboard box on his torso (he was a wrapped gift), only to have the wind direction change, nearly slamming me into him. Whew!

Back to the party, though. The band was terrific. The Halloween decorations were spooky and awesome. The vegetarian chili was absolutely delicious. And the Blue Moon flowed like water.

Once I got home and digested a bit, I ran two more miles so this could count as my long run for the week. And you know what? Those two extra miles felt great! I spent the rest of the day feeling happily sore, and feeling confident that I’ll have a similarly fun day in Philadelphia in a few weeks.

Now that I’m turning my focus toward Philly, I’m looking for advice and insight from people who have run that race before. Any tips you can pass along? Any secret hills I should be aware of? If so, let me know by posting a comment below.